Lysor Balarr
Lysor Balarr is the Guildmaster of the Silver Lotus Trading Guild, the owners of the Rogare Bank and Orthys Mint in Lys. He is most famed for his ongoing rule as the Archon of the Triarchy of the Three Daughters and his recent successful campaigns upon Westerosi and Essosi soil alike during the Dornish-Triarchy War. Since the Fall of Pentos in the Seventh Moon of 390AC, he has ruled over the Free City as the Silver King from the Lotus Palace, the vast construction once known as the Sept of the East. Biography Lysor Balarr was pledged in birth to Trios, bathed in viridescence as the morning light swept through the stained glass windows of the church to which his mother had been carried within a slave-borne palanquin at the orders of his father Syreo. The hands of a Priestess would be the first to lift him high, and it would be the true faith taught by the Irūdans of Trios that would define the first years of his life. By the time that he had learned letters and numbers, he could already echo the responses murmured after each bout of prayer, so when war broke out across the Triarchy in 351AC, it was decided that the safest place for the child would be within the Temple serving as an acolyte and an initiate with no name besides the one given by the Priests. Although after the war Lygo Balarr would claim the decision was made as proof to Trios of his conviction and his personal certainty of success, it has instead grown more likely to Lysor in reflection that the gesture was made to preserve the Balarr line should the conflict end poorly. Regardless of the reason behind the gesture, Lysor would remain within the Temple until the city of Lys fell to Mercantile Guild-funded forces in 356AC, and then another year and a half longer before his grandfather Lygo was poisoned the year after the war's end. The responsible Guildmaster of a lesser merchant faction was outed by agents in the employ of Lysor’s grandfather, and an apparent plot to seize control of the Rogare Bank and Orthys Mint was uncovered in the process - prizes claimed by the Balarr Family during the War Against the Tyranny of the High Council both. Suddenly Lysor’s father inherited the responsibilities left by his uncle, at his own father, Lysor’s grandfather Vaario's insistence. Lygo left no heir to his personal legacy, but Syreo did not wish that for himself. Thus Lysor’s life turned from that of priesthood to one more traditional for his family - mercantilism. Although his right arm now bore amber-yellow circlet tattoos from the years he had served in the faith, his time was now spent studying histories of the Known World, geography, languages and above all finances. There was an initial struggle prompted by the transition, the complexities of accounts and the deeper mathematics that drove them presented the greatest difficulties. Tutors from across the Free Cities and the Citadel of Oldtown were brought to assist him in his learning, but to little avail. When his father summoned the Archmaester of Maths & Economics, promising to provide him in a new yellow gold mask, rod and ring in exchange for his service, the Archmaester would too pledge his attention to Lysor. Sharp-witted and fast-spoken, Archmaester Kromley’s lessons would jump between Common Tongue and High Valyrian on a whim and whilst Lysor’s linguistic prowess would develop quickly, his conquest of commerce would continue to dawdle. Disheartened, Lysor returned to the Temple of Trios to surround himself in prayer, contemplating the path ahead in still meditation. He watched as visitors came to make their offerings to each of the three heads - the rich offering great bags filled with silver and gold, the poor forced to spill their blood upon the fangs of the maw for sake of their own empty pouches. His gaze carried to that of a Priest, raising yellow-cuffed sleeves high in a blessing familiar in its words, then to that of a street-beggar eyeing the tithes with a desperate expression, before thinking better of the pondered theft. He understood people, not numbers. When he had walked the halls of the temple as a child, he knew the words the Irūdans would proclaim before their lips gave movement, the offering a man would place before a head simply from the way he walked. He lingered that night to meditate further. When the end of the moon came, Archmaester Kromley notified Syreo Balarr of the sudden and inspired progress his son had been making, the boy showing great promise as a future merchant and magnate worthy of the title of Guildmaster. Behind every number lingered a person, Lyros had realised - the value a person placed on a certain set of goods, the expected cost that a person would seek to pay as a fare between cities, the worth of a particular person purchased upon Barter Beach and bound for the mines of Norvos. By his coming of age in 364AC, Lysor was near as equally involved with the operations of the Silver Lotus Trading Guild and its assets as his father and grandfather. Lysor took particular responsibility with the management of the Rogare Bank and its subsidiary in the Orthys Mint - responsible for the production of the Wenches, Damsels and Maidens utilised in Lys, and since the creation of the Triarchy by Morosh Adarys in 326AC, increasingly in Tyrosh and Myr too. The Bank had surged in power in recent years, particularly so as a response to the failing of the Iron Bank of Braavos following the Targaryen conquest several decades prior and the subsequent failure to rebuild what was lost. After an attempted break-in to pillage the vault, Lysor moved to hire further guardsmen from groups of sellswords of known quality and prowess. Negotiating with them extended employment contracts in exchange for their ongoing loyalty, Lysor also invested in higher and thicker walls, as started the construction of a deeper and more secure main vault. Lysor’s responsibilities were not confined to that of the Free City of Lys, instead spending extensive periods of time travelling aboard his personal vessel Malachite Shield between the Free Cities, none more so than those of Tyrosh and Myr. Lysor also spend considerable time sailing between the Stepstones, visiting the mines dotted across the isles that helped fuel production throughout the Triarchy - copper and tin for the bronze helms for those that patrolled its streets, iron for the blades of the Archon’s armies, silver and gold for the coins minted with his face on the underside. Lysor’s father would take his place on one such trip to the isle of Redwater in 374AC whilst Lysor was tied into talks with a council of remnant nobility in Lys. Syreo would not return, his ship boarded by the denizens of the Pirate Lord Melvan Chaffton - a Stormlander wishing to rival the island status of House Tarth and Estermont with an isle-based seat of his own - the entire crew put the sword when they refused to surrender the contents of their cargohold. Lysor’s anger was felt two-fold. The wound left by oppression of his family of a century or so prior by the nobility of Lys, healed in part by the changes following the 357AC now bled anew. The few Rogares that remained within the halls of their eponymous bank as administrators and negotiators were stripped of their roles and cast out into the streets. By Lysor’s order the establishment’s Captain of the Guard, a scion of the Vhassyl family was removed and replaced by Daros, a proven figure of non-noble birth. Likewise, the nature of the isles to the west demanded a constant Triarchy presence within them, he mused, for the tyranny of man would always settle amongst them - and the Triarchy was positioned to suffer for it most of all. Sending the personal strength of the Silver Lotus Trading Guild to the Stepstones to hunt for pirates for the best part of the year, both of Lysor’s bold actions caught the eye of other Guildmasters across the Triarchy. Lysor’s bid for the position of Archon during the elections of 380AC would prove successful, his primary pledge being the management of the growing Dornish presence in the western Stepstones. In 381AC whilst the Iron Throne found itself enamoured in civil war, the coordinated efforts to rescue the isles were sprung - Grey Gallows, Bloodstone and the Veiled Isle liberated in unison, and Dustspear shortly afterwards following the Battle of Ash and Dust. It wouldn’t serve to simply claw them from the hands of the Dornish. They had to be secured, stabilised, defined as Triarchy land just as the Disputed Lands had been before them. Calculated and deliberate strikes along the eastern coast of Westeros would cripple the immediate rivals to Triarchy rule whilst the Redwynes and Iron Fleet lingered on the western coast of the continent. Thousands of sellswords and sellsails descended upon Dorne before the embers of the Dornish outpost on Dustspear had faltered. Planky Town was seized, the Greenblood blockaded and the harbour transformed into the Triarchy’s primary landing point on the continent. Lysor ordered his commanders to stir the Dornish into a frenzy and bait them into premature and poorly planned strike. Whilst Daros, one of the Archon’s most loyal creatures after his promotion in 374AC harried the lands around Sunspear, burning groves and poisoning wells as he went, Lysor ordered a raid on the nearby Water Gardens. Their attention drawn elsewhere, the guards proved to be a paltry force compared to their own and the retreat of House Martell was quickly claimed - with it all the heirs and fosters of several Dornish Noble Houses that had been sent there: Dalt, Allyrion, Vaith, Qorgyle, Toland and Dayne most notable among them. Forced to retrieve his prizes from the castle of Ghost Hill after the guile of the man Ylvar, his generosity and mercy was shown once again. While hostages, Lysor insisted that those captured were to be treated fairly, sending them to be fostered in the manses throughout the Triarchy for the war’s duration. There was little value in tarnished stock, after all. The Battle for the Tor proved a surprise to Lysor, nonetheless. He had waited upon an eventual response from the rest of Westeros beyond Dorne itself, but had done so looking to the waves. Lord Baratheon and the Marcher Lords had moved in defiance of the harsh desert sands they sallied through to meet with the sellswords besieging the seat of House Jordayne. A retreat was ordered, and with the eastern coast of Dorne drained of its wealth, withdrawal from the continent started to occur. Leaving cursory forces of troops in the taken castles to slow the Westerosi advance, he called for a full retreat back across the Narrow Sea - setting Planky Town ablaze as they did so. Refusing the peace treaty presented by the Westerosi, Lysor Balarr instead moved quickly to position himself to declaw the Stormlander as he had the Dornish. Learning quickly from the mistakes of the last campaign, Lysor cast the net across the Stormlands wide, ensuring each coil was in place before ordering it tightened. Evenfall Hall, Greenstone, Griffin’s Roost, Bronzegate, Haystack Hall, the Rainwood, Crow’s Nest, Mistwood, Weeping Town and Moth’s March fell in quick succession, the Archon’s grip tightening towards Storm’s End. After outriders reported the fall of his force near Gallowsgrey, Lysor split his force in two and the Stormlander-Dornish army, drunk off the glory of victory and rageful at the invasion of their home fell into place between them. The Battle at Bronzegate proved to be a slaughter without compare - the greatest loss of Westerosi life within the entire war. By now, the Iron Throne’s own conflicts had reached resolution - primarily by the actions of Lord Andar Royce and his capture of the treasonous Brynden Baelish near Harrenhal - and as such now King Edmund’s attention and ire turned south. As he had before, knowing the Stormlands once again crippled with the destruction of their fleets at Estermont and Tarth, Lysor called for a retreat of his skirmishing forces. With a token force commanded by Salarazon Saan holding the royal fleet at bay near the Sapphire Isle to cover their withdrawal, Lysor returned to the lands of the Triarchy once more. Having secured the future of the Stepstones, Lysor now ordered them colonised, sending masons, blacksmiths and carpenters to construct and expand towns, prospectors to identify valuable mining sites and armies of soldiers to protect all alike. Ships patrolled the isles, falling upon Westerosi vessels to fund the expansion. When news of Westeros-wide calls from the Iron Throne to prepare for an invasion of Myr reached the Archon’s ear, he moved to reinforce and bolster the army within the city walls, but did not wish to abandon his efforts in the Stepstones. Lords raising their levies could take moons, if not years, he knew, so there was little value in stunting the growth in the isles until a time came that it was demanded. It would come sooner than he expected. Lysor would sail between his Stepstones personally aboard his flagship, rallying his strength to him whilst the Westerosi laid siege to the northernmost city of the Triarchy. United once more, the armies he landed at Anlos, Pelosse and Liy closed in on the Royal forces - but found only a broken king mourning for his lost sons. The history of the Ninepenny Kings was a familiar one to Lysor, and the irony of a crowned man of nobility bowing to his whims, one with naught nobility, simply ambition was not lost on him. Atop the hill known as the Tree of Crowns within the eponymous region of the Disputed Lands, he laid down his terms with a contented smile. As 385AC drew to a close a few moons later, Lysor’s actions in strengthening the Triarchy with his Pact served as the basis of his re-election campaign. In the years since, the expansion of Triarchy influence has only continued to grow. The Stepstones finds itself now littered with colonies of villages and towns based around quarries, mines, forests and fishing grounds, none more so that on the isles of Bloodstone, Highwatch, Scarwood, Grey Gallows, Redwater and Pryr. The Disputed Lands, now altercated only in name has experienced a similar colonisation and renovation as the Merchant Guilds continue to invest in the future of the Daughters, funded by the taxes and tariffs paid by the Westerosi vessels crossing the Stepstones. The production and price demanded by Tyroshi dyes has only surged, the worth of Myrish and Lyseni-trained slaves does naught but grow and the Rogare Bank remains the strongest financial institution west of Qarth. Nonetheless, news of the ongoing and worsening health of King Edmund I Baelish weighs heavy upon Lysor Balarr’s mind. The Pact served as much as a binding document between the pair of them as it did between the Iron Throne and the Triarchy, and now the strength of one of the signees falters, will it remain resolute? Timeline * 346AC - Born to Syreo Balarr and his wife Vorelna, pledged to Trios. * 350AC - Starts serving in the Temple of Trios at Lys, initially just collecting offerings and donations, but later assisting in services. * 351-358AC - Continues to serve in the Temple throughout the War Against the Tyranny of the High Council at the orders of his great-uncle Lygo. * 358AC - Lygo is poisoned, Lysor returns to learning the mercantile trade of his family, finding success after initial difficulties. * 361AC - Lysor declines his father’s offer of a ship, instead purchasing one for himself a few moons later, having earned the necessary coin himself. Delighted, Syreo grants Lysor more autonomy in the management of various operations pertaining to the family’s banking operations in Lys. * 364AC - Lysor starts as the primary individual responsible for the Orthys Mint, as well as the security of the famed Rogare Bank. Such a position demands extensive travel across the Free Cities and the Stepstones. * 374AC - Lysor’s father goes in Lysor’s place to oversee a prospecting operation on the isle of Redwater. Whilst returning, his ship is attacked by pirates. Lysor becomes the Guildmaster of the Silver Lotus Trading Guild. * 380AC - On promises of true colonisation of the Stepstones, Lysor’s bid for Archon proves successful. He starts to make ready the fleets and armies of the Triarchy, hiring thousands of sellswords to his banner. * 381-385AC - The Dornish-Triarchy War ends in a resounding success for the Triarchy. With the majority of their losses taken slave soldiers and sellswords, the weight of the war is felt more heavily by the Westerosi. The Pact secures Triarchy interests in the Stepstones. * 385-390AC - The Triarchy continues to colonise the Stepstones, creating anew and expanding pre-existing towns across the isle, particularly so upon the islands of Bloodstone, Highwatch, Scarwood, Grey Gallows, Redwater and Pryr. Family Tree Supporting Characters * Daros, the Reaper - Captain of the Silver Guard, Guardians of the Rogare Bank and Orthys Mint, now personal entourage of the Archon of the Triarchy - Archetype: Warrior * Sacniete - Priestess of Trios, trained in the Lyseni temple, Sacniete serves as Lysor’s confidant and guide towards the Emerald Light - Archetype: Zealot * Tregario Nestyl - Accomplished merchant, Guildmaster of a subsidiary organisation serving beneath the Silver Lotus Trading Guild - Archetype: Trader * Irror Balarr - Cousin to Lysor, Captain of the Prospect, Illor serves as stand-in Guildmaster when Lysor finds himself engaged with his responsibilities as Archon - Archetype: Ship Captain * Lorezo - Previously in the employ of Moraqon family after training by the Ormellons, Lorezo curiosity led him to employment with the Silver Lotus Trading Guild - Archetype: Scholar * Malaphos - A former member of the Alchemists of Lys, now serving the Archon as personal healer and consultant in matters arcane - Archetype: Medic Category:The Balarr Family Category:Essosi Category:Triarchy of the Three Daughters Category:Trade Guilds Category:Lys Category:Tyrosh Category:Myr